The white pink beautiful pet rabbit died midway while giving birth to its fourth issue around 3:30 pm under the neem tree in the front garden. Along with the rabbit the three kits have also died. For the information purpose: A baby rabbit is called a kit. I was in love with this rabbit, especially those shiny pink eyes. It used to walk, hop and run enticingly romantically before me, used to take the carrot or a bunch of coriander leaves from my hand with a snatch. While taking its food, the other day it even bit my hand. Naughty!
A farmer caught this rabbit along with few others, sold them to me for Rs.1000/-about 6 months ago, at the farmhouse. One male and 3 female rabbits. I had even purchased few rabbit cages of 1.5 feet*2 feet for their safe stay. Anyone who saw the pink eyed white rabbit fell in love with it. In a way, a part of my heart was taken away by those pink eyes! My domestic help cum watchman Deepak kept telling me that this rabbit is pregnant and we must pay special attention to it. And in fact we were paying special attention though we did not know a thing about rabbit pregnancy. I was told that rabbits dig a deep hole in the earth, deliver its kits there. About the burrow or of the kits in it no one will know except the rabbit. Hence, we took care not to release the rabbit from its cage and fed it regularly. The rabbit looked, even in its pregnancy, thin, as it used to be. No one can even guess of its pregnancy! The pink eyed white rabbit used to hop around, eat and with its front paws used to clean it face often, it became a part of the eco-system of the farmhouse!
Around 2:30 pm on this unlucky day, I had walked over to the rabbit cage, picked it up, and shifted it to the thick cool shade of the neem tree. We both looked at each other. The weatherman forecasted heat wave, given red alert, advised all to remain at home and not to venture out unless necessary. On a peak summer afternoon, neem tree shade is heaven. The rabbit appeared a bit lazy, not that active. Foolish I was, I had attributed this condition of the rabbit to the heat wave conditions. Exactly around the same time on this day, few of my friends arrived to spend that hot afternoon with me, and to drink sweet lassi…Laban. Their arrival made me so involved that I had forgotten the rabbit; became engrossed in a discussion with friends.
Around 4 pm, remembering the rabbit, I rushed to check and feed it. It was already too late by then. The rabbit was lying pressing tightly itself to the wall of the cage, three newborn kits were lying next to the rabbit, and the fourth kit was midway when the rabbit decided to give up. There were traces of delivery blood on the ground. The pink eyes of the rabbit were open; the left pink open eye was pressing itself against the cage. The stare in that lifeless pink eye seemed to say “Why were you not there when I needed you most”? The three kits died soon after their birth, few red ants were crawling on them. I was standing before them helpless, useless and hopeless.
The other rabbit, i.e., the father rabbit was circling the cage, sniffing the dead, sniffing the dried blood. It ran around the cage few more times; I could hear its silent painful wailing. It refused to eat or drink for the rest of the day. It was soon the sunset time. I took the cage into the fields, dug a two feet deep hole, took out the 3 kits laid them down gently on the ground in a row. Later, I took out the mother pink-eyed white rabbit, along with the fourth half-born kit, laid it down next to the three kits. I did not dare to look into those pink eyes that had trusted me blindly. I had no answers for those unasked questions.
I began to push the soil back into the hole…the burial process. I took care not to put the loose soil on its face, hence began with its legs. The kits eyes were closed and even before they could open their eyes, the world was dead to them. The thought, which I did not want to come up in my mind, did a rose and stood before me as a question “What was the color of kits’ eyes”? As I continued to push the soil back into the hole, I understood why the rabbits give birth to their kits in a deep hole a Burroughs.
A grain of sand fell on the open pink eye. There was tremendous inexplicable pain in those eyes. As more lose soil was lowered into the hole, the ‘kits and later the white rabbit were covered with the hard brown soil. The sun became pinkish-red before finally disappearing from the horizon. As I returned to the farm house, the male rabbit came hopping, circled me twice before going away into the garden. They have very intense feelings towards their kind; their grief is as powerful & deep as that of humans. Had Aristotle been alive, I would have kicked him on his butt first and asked later “How could man be a measure of all”?
Sayonara the pink eyed most beautiful white rabbit and most importantly the even more beautiful kits. I am sure that we will never meet again on this planet called ‘earth’. But I do have hope that we may meet again somewhere in the eternity. You may say, I am hoping against hope. But I ask you all, in turn, what is wrong in hoping against the hope?
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
